Posted by Alex Forbes on October 14, 2003 at 00:48:30 from 165.247.213.218 user Pitsligo.
In Reply to: Re: Are the D's the real heroes? posted by John Nichols on October 13, 2003 at 14:32:48:
"Can you explain why Dot makes you knash your teeth."
I think Peter's comment:
"I knew nobody remotely like the Walkers or the Blacketts. The Ds were the classic bridging link."
...may be the link. I *did* grow up living on an island, sailing every day. I *did* camp out without my parents around. For me, S&A wasn't so much a distant fantasy land, but kids like myself, out there doing just what I was doing --only more so, and with grand style! WH and PM were probably my least favorite books for many years, I think because I had to suffer through the Ds making a hash of even the most basic stuff. Dick redeemed himself early with the craigfast sheep (I also learned rock climbing very young, and I knew that the situation he got himself into was more than a bit ticklish), but Dot seemed a little too much in her own fantasy world, and I was never sure she could pull through in a crunch
So I guess at the young age when I first read the books, the more hands-on accomplishments of Dick impressed me more than the less tangible results and drive of Dot.
I still tend to ignore Dot, but that is mostly a throwback to my first impressions of the books. She's not my favorite character, and I still think she's a bit ditzy, but at this point I wouldn't write her off the expedition.
Kathryn:
"I really think their expatriate condition does explain the passionate way they feel about the island - there is such a sense of longing, especially in Swallowdale after they've been shipwrecked and can't live there."
You betcha! In exile from my Island in the face of family troubles, I can tell you that it hurts every day not to be there. To have to look out across the water at it every day must have been pretty awful --especially for John, with the loss of his ship on his conscience. Ugh. I've had nightmares about that sort of thing.
'We adored the place....Going away from it, we were half drowned in tears....While away from it, as children and as grown-ups, we dreamt about it. No matter where I was, wandering about the world, I used at night to look for the North Star, and, in my mind's eye, could see the beloved skyline of great hills beneath it.....'
I can't tell you how much that passage means to me now, 3000 miles from my home. And the sentiment does come through in AR's writing. The Walkers' devotion to their island rings very true, as does the Ds' less exuberant feelings toward the place: they didn't grow up there, and so the magic of the place hasn't yet soaked into their bones. Give 'em time!
As for the Walkers being less of a driving force after SW, I hadn't noticed it before, but --by gum!-- of course that makes sense!
Long, maudlin post, but sometimes they are.
Alex